Brampton, Ontario — Ontario’s Flower City is standing up for it’s rep and fighting back against what of a term that many Bramptonians are far too familiar with—postal code discrimination.
According to a January report from Rates.com, Brampton tops the province in auto insurance rates at an average of $2,698 per year.
Now, Brampton city council has launched its “Fair Deal for Brampton” initiative which they are hoping to bring more widespread attention to the phenomena of postal code discrimination and how it affects cities.
The province’s current system allows insurers to adjust auto insurance rates based on widespread statistical analysis of a geographic area’s driving patterns, as opposed to the record of the individual driver.
“It causes clusters of large areas to be grouped together simply based on geography — thus the term ‘postal code discrimination’. This has allowed Bramptonians to be unfairly targeted just because of where they live,” said Coun. Gurpreet Dillon at the Feb. 17 council meeting.
The Ontario government says that they are looking for solutions, but has given no indication as to how or when.
